They can laugh all they like, these squirrels, at least my head’s warm. I hate being cold. Have to puff my feathers up so I look as if I’ve eaten all the insects in the big tree all by myself, or I’m some fat, stupid, wood pigeon. But now that I’ve got this hat on I’m buggered if I know how to get it off. Problem is, see, my feathers all point downwards, from the top of my head. So if I try to get rid, I’ll end up as bald as that snowman down there. Also, if I didn’t have it I’d be just like the others, my place on a Christmas card would go to a sodding dog or something.
 
It doesn’t help the aerodynamics, though. Harder to judge takeoffs and landings, and gaps between branches. Nearly came a cropper yesterday, getting to the feeder. Nice load of new fatty bits arrived, place immediately full of sodding finches, normally I’d land in the middle of them, scatter them to the wind, scoff the lot, but this time the hat put me off balance and I nearly brained myself on the little roof. Why’s a bird feeder got a roof anyway? Give me the open sky any day. A roof just gives these bloody cats an edge.    
 
It’s no fun, you know, being a bloody Robin. With my bold red breast that the humans all love so much. Like a sodding beacon, letting every predator in eyeshot know I’m here. Still, at least it’s nearly Christmas. Nice time of the year; plenty of good scraps and sometimes a present. It was a ball of fat on a string last year. Something better this year please? A nice, fur-lined birdhouse would be nice. Not cat fur, that would be creepy. With a constant supply of nice fat juicy bugs, so I don’t have to scratch about in the mud like some old tramp. No more hats though please. Or scarves. My brother, two streets away, he had a scarf once. Got him on a Christmas card right enough, but then the cat got him. He saw the beast at the last minute, thought he’d made it to the open sky, but the scarf was trailing and the bloody cat got a claw to it. Tragic.
 
Tell you what would be a really good present – if we could swop places with the humans, they come and sleep out in the cold and we get to kip in their lovely warm houses. Fat chance. They’ve got it made, got it just the way they like it, them with their opposable sodding thumbs.
 
One thing we can do that they can’t though, something that’s worth more than anything: they can’t fly. They’ll never see the world from way up here, never feel the wind rushing through their feathers as they wheel and swoop. In fact, you know what, they don’t have feathers either. I’m starting to feel sorry for them.